heart.

There were the tracks of more than a hundred horses, and as many mules.
Some of both were iron-shod; but for all that, we knew they had been
either ridden or driven by Indians: they, too, were captives.

The sign helped my companions to much knowledge, that would have been
unintelligible to me. It was certainly the path of a war-party of
Indians _on the back-track_. They were laden with plunder, and driving
before them, or forcing to follow, a crowd of captives--horses, mules,
and women--children, too, for we saw the tiny foot-marks of tender age.
The trail was significant of all this--even to me.

But my comrades saw more; they no longer doubted that the Indians were
Comanches--a moccasin had been picked up, a castaway--and the leathern
tassel attached to the heel declared the tribe to which its wearer
belonged to be the Comanche.

The trail was quite fresh; that is, but a few hours had intervened since
the Indians passed along it. Notwithstanding the dryness of the
atmosphere, the mud on the river-edge had not yet become "skinned," as
the trappers expressed it. The Indians had forded the stream about the
time the prairie was set on fire.

The horses, we had been following across the burnt plain, were those of
a party who had gone out in pursuit of the steed. Just at the ford,
they had overtaken the main body, who carried along the spoil and
captives. From that point, all had advanced together.

Had they done so? This was our first object of inquiry. It was almost
too probable to admit of a doubt; but we desired to be certain about a
matter of such primary importance, and we looked for the hoof with the
piece chipped from its edge--easily to be identified by all of us.

In the muddy margin of the stream we could not find it; but the steed
may have been led or ridden in front of the rest, and his tracks
trampled out by the thick drove that followed.

At this moment, Stanfield came up and joined us in the examination. The
ranger had scarcely bent his eyes on the trail, when a significant
exclamation escaped him. He stood pointing downward to the track of a
shod horse.

"My horse!" cried he; "my horse Hickory, by Gosh!"

"Your horse?"

"May I never see Kaintuck if it ain't."

"Yur sure o' it, ole hoss? yur sure it's yurn?"

"Sure as shootin'; I shod him myself. I kid tell that ere track on a
dry sand-bar. I know every nail thar; I druv 'em wi' my own hand--it's
him sartin."

"Wheeo-o!